Inevitably Delinquents
by thefaultinourfanfics
Summary: One girl. One boy. One town. One hilarious, prank-filled adventure. (MINI FANFICTION)
1. Chapter 1 - Hello, Little Nick

**HEY GUYS  
Once again, I am back to confuse you. **

**Well, FFN decided to delete WFS.**

 **Yay.**

 **And I felt bad that I wasn't writing anything for y'all, so I decided to make this!**

 **Idk what I'd call this, it's like, a mini fanfiction.**

 **BUt it's inspired by John Green's novel, Paper Towns, and yesh.**

 **Hope y'all enjoy!**

 **...**

There's always that simple pleasure before you go to sleep.

You're tired, droopy-eyed, content, and frankly happy with everything around you because you finally get to go to sleep after a day's hard work.

But it's a whole different story, when you go to adjust your head and fall asleep, and you find one of your best friends and long term crush sliding open your screenless window, and carelessly jumping right in your room.

I shot up from the bed when I heard the window open and of course came in contact with none other than Gil Gordon's ocean blue eyes staring into mine.

His eyes were all I could see at first, but upon further inspection, I realized he was wearing black face-paint and a black hoodie.

"Were you sleeping?" he asked.

"No, I was lying on my bed, with the covers over me, doing some yoga."

"That doesn't answer my question."

I laughed awkwardly, then proceeded to pull my hair out from it's former braid, while walking up to Gil, my face inches from his.

I honestly couldn't imagine why he was here.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of you breaking into my house?" I asked.

Gil and I were best friends of course, but I'd like to think he'd choose someone else besides me to meet dead in the night wearing face paint.

"I need your car." He explained.

"I don't have a car." I said, which was something of a sore point for me.

"Well, I need your mom's car." He said, adjusting his initial request.

"You have your own car." I pointed out.

Gil puffed out his cheeks and sighed. "Right, but the thing is that my parents have taken the keys to my car and locked them inside a safe which they have put under their bed, and BP,"-who was his dog-"is sleeping inside their room tonight. And BP has a freaking aneurysm whenever he catches sight of me. I mean, I could totally sneak in there and steal the safe and crack it and get my keys out and drive away, but the thing is, that's not even worth trying because Bubble Puppy is just going to bark like crazy if I so much as crack open the door. So like I said before, I need a car. And I also need you to drive it, because I've got eleven things I want to do tonight, and at least 5 of them require a getaway driver."

When I let my sight unfocus, he became nothing but eyes, floating in the ether. And then I locked back on him, and I could see the outline of his face, the paint still wet against his face, and his mouth curved into a small smile.

"Any felonies?" I asked.

"Hmm," Gil began before looking at me, "Remind me if breaking and entering is a felony."

"No." I answered sternly, not wanting in any part of his plan that could possibly destroy my future.

"No, it's not a felony? Or no you won't help?"

"No, I won't help. Can't you enlist some of your other underlings to drive you around?" Jacob, and/or Nick, his little jock friends, were always doing his chores for him.

"They're part of the problem." Gil said.

"What's the problem?" I asked.

"There are eleven problems." He said, somewhat impatiently.

"No felonies." I said.

"I swear to god, Molly, you won't be asked to commit a felony."

I sighed, reaching for my car keys that sat on the face of my desk.

The keys were mine, but the car tragically was not.

So I could only use the car when my mom was not working, such as on the weekends.

Oh, and also the middle of the goddamned night.

"I have school tomorrow." I told him.

"Yeah I know," Gil said, "There's school tomorrow and the day after that, and just thinking about that for too long is enough to make a guy go bonkers. So yeah, it's a school night. That's why we've gotta go now, so we can make it back by morning."

"I don't know."

"Molls," He said, "Molly, my love. How long have we been friends?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" I said, knowing that answering his question would only make me feel more entitled to go with him.

"Oh christ, Molly. Would you please just suck it up and come with me? Just this once?"

I sighed, grabbing my jacket off my chair and sliding it on.

"That's my Molls." Gil said, before climbing back out the window, only this time, I followed.

...

And so we went.

We ran, heads down, to my mom's minivan before opening the doors and hopping in.

Gil told me not to turn on the engine just yet (too much noise) so, I first put it in neutral, pushing my foot off the cement, and then letting the car roll down the driveway slowly.

We slowly rolled past a couple houses before I turned on the engine and the headlights so that we could drive like normal, civilized people.

Gil started talking, "The thing is they don't even really care; they just feel like my exploits make them look bad. Just now, do you know what he said? He said, 'I don't care if you screw up your life, but don't embarrass us in front of the Gentilellas—they're our friends.' Ridiculous. And you have no idea how hard they've made it to get out of that goddamned house. You know how in prison escape movies they put bundled-up clothes under the blankets to make it look like there's a person in there?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, well, Mom put a goddamned baby monitor in my room so she could hear my sleep-breathing all night. So I just had to pay Vanessa five bucks to sleep in my room, and then I put bundled-up clothes in her room." Vanessa is Gil's little sister. "It's Mission: Impossible shit now. Used to be I could just sneak out like a regular goddamned American—just climb out the window and jump off the roof. But God, these days, it's like living in a fascist dictatorship."

"Are you going to tell me where we're going?"

"Well, first we're going to Publix. Because for reasons I'll explain later, I need you to go grocery shopping for me. And then to Wal-Mart."

"What, we're just gonna go on a grand tour of every commercial establishment in Central Florida?" I asked.

"Tonight, my love, we are going to right a lot of wrongs. And we are going to wrong some rights. The first shall be last; the last shall be first; the meek shall do some earth-inheriting. But before we can radically reshape the world, we need to shop." I pulled into the Publix then, the parking lot almost entirely empty, and parked.

"Listen," Gil started, "how much money do you have on you right now?"

"Zero dollars and zero cents." I answered, before turning off the ignition and looking over at him.

He wriggled his hand into his black jeans before pulling out several hundred dollar bills.

"Fortunately, the good lord has provided."

"What?" I stared at him in awe, coming up with no possible explanation of how he could have so much money.

"The perks of knowing your parents' bank account password. I'm not allowed to access the account, but I know my parents' password because they use 'f00disg00d' for everything. So I made a withdrawal."

I tried to blink away the awe, but he saw the way I was looking at him and smirked at me. "Basically," he said, "this is going to be the best night of your life."

...

The thing about Gilligan Zachary Gordon is that really all I could ever do was let him talk, and then when he stopped talking, encourage him to go on, due to the facts that 1. I liked him, was absolutely unprecedented in every way, and 3. He never really asked me any questions, so the only way to avoid silence was to keep him talking.

And so in the parking lot of Publix he said, "So, right. I made you a list. If you have any questions, just call my cell. Listen, that reminds me, I took the liberty of putting some supplies in the back of the van earlier."

"What, like, before I agreed to all this?"

"Well, yes. Technically yes. Anyway, just call me if you have any questions, but with the Vaseline, you want the one that's bigger than your fist. There's like a Baby Vaseline, and then there's a Mommy Vaseline, and then there's a big fat Daddy of a Vaseline, and that's the one you want. If they don't have that, then get, like, three of the Mommies."

He handed me the list and a hundred-dollar bill and said, "That should cover it."

 _ **Gil's list:**_

 _ **3 whole Catfish, wrapped separately.**_

 _ **Veet (It's for shaving your legs), only you don't need a razor**_

 _ **Vaseline**_

 _ **Six-pack, Mountain Dew**_

 _ **One dozen tulips**_

 _ **One bottle of water**_

 _ **Tissues**_

 _ **One can of blue spray paint**_

...

Now, I'm not sure what you're supposed to say to the checkout woman at twelve-thirty in the morning when you put thirteen pounds of catfish, Veet, the fat-daddy-size tub of Vaseline, a six-pack of Mountain Dew, a can of blue spray paint, and a dozen tulips on the conveyor belt.

But here's what I said: "This isn't as weird as it looks."

The woman cleared her throat but didn't look up. "Still weird," she muttered.

...

"I really don't want to get in any trouble," I told Gil back in the minivan as he used the bottled water to wipe the black paint off his face with the tissues.

He'd only needed the paint, apparently, to get out of the house.

"In my admission letter from Duke it actually explicitly says that they won't take me if I get arrested."

"You're a very anxious person, Molly."

"Let's just please not get in trouble," I said. "I mean, I want to have fun and everything, but not at the expense of, like, my future."

He looked up at me, his face mostly revealed now, and he smiled just the littlest bit.

"It amazes me that you can find all that shit even remotely interesting."

"Huh?"

"College: getting in or not getting in. Trouble: getting in or not getting in. School: getting A's or getting D's. Career: having or not having. House: big or small, owning or renting. Money: having or not having. It's all so boring."

I started to say something, to say that he obviously cared a little, because he had good grades and was going to the University of Florida's honors program next year, but he just said, "Walmart."

We entered Walmart together and picked up that thing from infomercials called The Club, which locks a car's steering wheel into place.

As we walked through the Juniors department, I asked Gil, "Why do we need The Club?"

Gil managed to speak in his usual manic soliloquy without answering my question.

"Did you know that for pretty much the entire history of the human species, the average lifespan was less than thirty years? You could count on ten years or so of real adulthood, right? There was no planning for retirement. There was no planning for a career. There was no planning. No time for planning. No time for a future. But then the life spans started getting longer, and people started having more and more future, and so they spent more time thinking about it. About the future. And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future—you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college."

It felt like Gil was just rambling to avoid the question at hand.

So I repeated it.

"Why do we need The Club?"

Gil patted me on the middle of my back softly.

"I mean, obviously this is all going to be revealed to you before the night is over."

And then, in boating supplies, Gil located an air horn.

He took it out of the box and held it up in the air, and I said, "No," and he said, "No what?" And I said, "No, don't blow the air horn," except when I got to about the b in blow, he squeezed on it and it let out an excruciatingly loud honk that felt in my head like the auditory equivalent of an aneurysm, and then he said, "I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. What was that?" And I said, "Stop b—" and then he did it again.

A Wal-Mart employee just a little younger than us walked up to us then and said, "Hey, you can't use that in here," and Gil said, with seeming sincerity, "Sorry, I didn't know that," and the girl said, "Oh, it's cool. I don't mind, actually."

And then the conversation seemed over, except the girl could not stop looking at Gil, and honestly I don't blame her, because he is hard to stop looking at, and then finally she said, "What are you guys up to tonight?"

And Gil said, "Not much. You?"

And she said, "I get off at one and then I'm going out to this bar down on Orange, if you want to come. But you'd have to drop off your sister; they're really strict about ID's."

His what?!

"I'm not his sister," I said, looking at the girl's sneakers.

And then Gil proceeded to lie. "She's actually my cousin," he said.

Then she sidled up to me, put his hand around my waist so that I could feel each of his fingers taut against my hip bone, and he added, "And my lover."

The girl just rolled his eyes and walked away, and Gil's hand lingered for a minute and I took the opportunity to put my arm around him.

"You really are my favorite cousin," I told him.

He smiled and bumped me softly with his hip, spinning out of my embrace.

"Don't I know it," He said.

…

We were driving down a blessedly empty I-4, and I was following Gil's directions.

The clock on the dashboard said it was 1:07 am.

"It's pretty, huh?" he said.

He was turned away from me, staring out the window, so I could hardly see him.

"I love driving fast under streetlights."

"Light," I said, "the visible reminder of Invisible Light."

"That's beautiful," he said.

"T. S. Eliot," I said. "You read it, too. In English last year."

I hadn't actually ever read the whole poem that line was from, but a couple of the parts I did read got stuck in my head.

"Oh, it's a quote," he said, a little disappointed.

I saw his hand on the center console.

I could have put my own hand on the center console and then our hands would have been in the same place at the same time.

But I didn't.

"Say it again," he said.

"Light, the visible reminder of Invisible Light."

"Yeah," he answered, looking out the passenger window, his hair reflecting oncoming streetlights. I thought for a second he might be crying, but he rallied quickly, pulling his hoodie up and taking The Club out of the Wal-Mart bag.

"Well, this'll be fun at any rate," he said as he ripped open The Club's packaging.

"May I ask where we're going yet?"

"Nick's," he answered.

"Uh-oh," I said as I pulled up to a stop sign.

I put the minivan in park and started to tell Gil that I was taking him home.

"No felonies. Promise. We need to find Nick's car. His girlfriend's street is the next one up on the right, but he wouldn't park his car on her street, because her parents are home. Try the one after. That's the first thing."

"Okay," I said, "but then we go home."

"No, then we move on to Part Two of Eleven."

"Gil, this is a bad idea."

"Well he deserves it."

"What did he even do?"

"Oh honey," Gil started, smirking slightly, "He's done a lot of things."

"Such as?"

"Spread rumors. Since he's got the power and is practically the second most popular guy in high school, he used it to his advantage."

"What rumors?" I said before almost immediately regretting it because I had been asking too many questions.

"Molls, my love, that's personal business that you may just find out later. Now let's find his damn car."

We found Nick's Lexus two blocks down from Gaby's street (His girlfriend), parked in a cul-de-sac.

Before I'd even come to a complete stop, Gil jumped out of the minivan with The Club in hand. He pulled open the Lexus's driver-side door, sat down in the seat, and proceeded to attach The Club to Nick's steering wheel. Then he softly closed the door to the Lexus.

"Dumb bastard never locks that car," he mumbled as he climbed back into the minivan.

He pocketed the key to The Club before reaching over patting my hair.

"Done. Now, to Gaby's house."

As I drove, Gil explained the next few parts to me.

"That's quite brilliant," I said, even though inside I was bursting with a shimmering nervousness. I turned onto Gaby's street and parked two houses down from her McMansion.

Gil crawled into the wayback of the minivan and returned with a pair of binoculars and a digital camera.

He looked through the binoculars first, and then handed them to me.

I could see a light on in the house's basement, but no movement.

I was mostly surprised that the house even had a basement—you can't dig very deep before hitting water in most of Orlando.

I reached into my pocket, grabbed my cell phone, and dialed the number that Gil recited to me. The phone rang once, twice, and then a groggy male voice answered, "Hello?"

"Mr. Bernards?" I asked.

Gil wanted me to call because no one would ever recognize my voice.

"Who is this? God, what time is it?"

"Sir, I think you should know that your daughter is currently having sex with Nicholas Walter in your basement."

And then I hung up.

Part Two: accompli.

Gil and I threw open the doors of the minivan and charged down the street, diving onto our stomachs just behind the hedge ringing Gaby's yard.

Gil handed me the camera, and I watched as an upstairs bedroom light came on, and then a stairway light, and then the kitchen light. And finally, the stairway down to the basement.

"Here he comes," Gil whispered, and I didn't know what he meant until, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a shirtless Nick Walter wiggling out of the basement window.

He took off sprinting across the lawn, naked but for his boxer shorts, and as he approached I jumped up and took a picture of him, completing Part Three.

The flash surprised both of us, I think, and he blinked at me through the darkness for a white-hot moment before running off into the night.

Gil tugged on my jeans leg; I looked down at him, and he was smiling goofily.

I reached my hand down, helped him up, and then we raced back to the car.

I was putting the key in the ignition when he said, "Let me see the picture."

I handed him the camera, and we watched it come up on the screen together, our heads almost touching.

Upon seeing the stunned, pale face of Nick Walter, I couldn't help but laugh.

"Oh, God," he said, and pointed.

In the rush of the moment, it seemed that Nick had been unable to get Little Nick inside his boxers, and so there it was, hanging out, digitally captured for posterity.

"Well that's small," Gil said, "in the same sense that Rhode Island is a state: it may have an illustrious history, but it sure isn't big."

I looked back at the house and noticed that the basement light was now off.

I found myself feeling slightly bad for Nick—it wasn't his fault he had a brilliantly vindictive "best friend".

When I looked over at Gil, he was staring at the house through his binoculars.

"We have to go," Gil said. "Into the basement."

"What? Why?"

"Part Four. Get his clothes in case he tries to sneak back into her house. Part Five. Leave fish for Gaby."

"No."

"Yes. Now," he said. "She's upstairs getting yelled at by her parents. But, like, how long does that lecture last? I mean, what do you say? So we have to hustle."

He got out of the car with the spray paint in one hand and one of the catfish in the other.

I whispered, "This is a bad idea," but I followed behind him, crouched down as he was, until we were standing in front of the still-open basement window.

"I'll go first," he said.

He went in feet first and was standing on Gaby's computer desk, half in the house and half out of it, when I asked him, "Can't I just be lookout?"

"Get your skinny ass in here," he answered, and so I did.

Quickly, I grabbed all the boy-type clothes I saw on Gaby's lavender-carpeted floor.

A pair of jeans with a leather belt, a pair of flipflops, a Winter Park High School Wildcats baseball cap, and a baby blue polo shirt.

I turned back to Gil, who handed me the paper-wrapped catfish, before deciding to take it back from some unknown reason.

Gil hid the fish between folded pairs of shorts in Gaby's closet.

I could hear footsteps upstairs, and tapped Gil on the shoulder and looked at her, my eyes bulging.

He just smiled and leisurely pulled out the spray paint. I scrambled out the window, and then turned back to watch as Gil leaned over the desk and calmly shook the spray paint.

In an elegant motion—the kind you associate with calligraphy or Zorro—he spray-painted the letter G onto the wall above the desk.

He reached his hands up to me, and I pulled him through the window.

He was just starting to stand when we heard a high-pitched voice shout, "DWIGHT!"

I grabbed the clothes and took off running, Gil behind me.

I heard, but did not see, the front door of Gaby's house swing open, but I didn't stop or turn around, not when a booming voice shouted "HALT!" and not even when I heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being pumped.

I heard Gil mumble "gun" behind me—he didn't sound upset about it exactly; he was just making an observation—and then rather than walk around Gaby's hedge, I dove over it headfirst. I'm not sure how I intended to land—maybe an artful somersault or something—but at any rate, I spilled onto the asphalt of the road, landing on my left shoulder.

Fortunately, Nick's bundle of clothes hit the ground first, softening the blow.

I swore, and before I could even start to stand, I felt Gil's hands pulling me up, and then we were in the car and I was driving in reverse with the lights off, which is how I nearly came to run over the mostly naked starting shortstop of the Winter Park High School Wildcats baseball team.

Nick was running very fast, but he didn't seem to be running anyplace in particular.

I felt another stab of regret as we backed up past him, so I rolled the window halfway down and threw his polo in his general direction.

Fortunately, I don't think he saw either Gil or me, and he had no reason to recognize the minivan since—and I don't want to sound bitter or anything by dwelling on this—I can't drive it to school. "Why the hell would you do that?" Gil asked as I turned on the lights and, driving forward now, began to navigate the suburban labyrinth back toward the interstate.

"I felt bad for him." I said.

"Whatever. We're going to Karin's house. It's on Pennsylvania, by the ABC Liquors."

"Don't be pissed at me," I said. "I just had a guy point a freaking shotgun at me for helping you, so don't be pissed at me."

"I'M NOT PISSED AT YOU!" Gil shouted, and then punched the dashboard.

"Well, you're screaming."

"I thought maybe—whatever."

"My heart is really pounding," I said.

"That's how you know you're having fun," Gil said. But it didn't feel like fun; it felt like a heart attack.

I pulled over into a 7-Eleven parking lot and held my finger to my jugular vein while watching the : in the digital clock blink every second. When I turned to Gil, he was rolling his eyes at me.

"My pulse is dangerously high," I explained. "I don't even remember the last time I got excited about something like that. The adrenaline in the throat and the lungs expanding."

"All your little anxieties. It's just so . . ."

"Cute?"

"Is that what they're calling childish these days?" He smiled.

Gil crawled into the backseat and came back with a bag.

How much shit did he put back there?

He opened up the bag and pulled out his iPad

"I'm going to watch a movie while you calm yourself. You just take your time."

And so we sat there, he with his iPad balanced on the dash, and me with a shaky finger on the pulse of myself.

My heartbeat slowed. And I tried to tell myself: Gilly's right.

There's nothing out here to be afraid of, not in this little city on this quiet night.

 **...**

 **AGHHHHHHHHH  
OKay so what'd you guys think? **

**I personally loved this "chapter" but idk I'm weird so I don't trust my own opinions.**

 **But remember to R &R!**

 **Oh, and shoutout to squad because I've been sending you guys previews of this for a while and it'S FINALLY HERE.**

 **ILY ALL,**

 **Amelia :))**


	2. Chapter 2 - The Asparagus of Light

**hEY Y'ALL!**

 **SO FFN DIDN'T DELETE MY STORY FOR ONCE YESSSS**

 **ALRIGHTY HERE'S CHAPTER 2 OF INEVITABLY DELINQUENTS**

"Part Six," Gil said once we were driving again.

He was waving his fingernails through the air, almost like he was playing piano.

"Leave flowers on Nonny's doorstep with apologetic note."

"What'd you do to him? And why are you giving him um...flowers?"

"Well, when he told me about Nick and something he was going to do to me, I sort of shot the messenger. And...I don't know...flowers are cheap."

"How so?" I asked.

We were pulled up to a stoplight, and some kids in a sports car next to us were revving their engine—as if I was going to race the Chrysler.

When you floored it, it whimpered.

"Well, I don't remember exactly what I called him, but it was something along the lines of 'sniveling, repulsive, idiotic, back-ridden, snaggletoothed, bitch with the worst hair in Central Florida—and that's saying something.'"

"His hair is great though. I remember Oona complaining a lot about someone yelling at Nonny for "no complete reason." I said.

"I know. When you say nasty things about people, you should never say the true ones, because you can't really fully and honestly take those back, you know? I mean, there are highlights. And there are streaks. And then there are skunk stripes. And yes, Oolala (A/N: If you get this reference I worship you, also I dedicate this to Mac.) did not take it well."

"Her name is Oona."

"Whatever."

As I drove up Nonny's house, Gil disappeared into the way-back and returned with the bouquet of tulips. Taped to one of the flowers' stems was a note Gil had folded to look like an envelope. He handed me the bouquet once I stopped, and I sprinted down a sidewalk, placed the flowers on Nonny's doorstep, and sprinted back.

"Part Seven," he said as soon as I was back in the minivan. "Leave a fish for the lovely Mr. Walter."

"I suspect he won't be home yet," I said, just the slightest hint of pity in my voice.

"I hope the cops find him barefoot, frenzied, and naked in some roadside ditch a week from now," Gil answered dispassionately.

"Remind me never to cross Gilligan Zachary Gordon," I mumbled, and Gil laughed.

"Seriously," he said. "We bring the fucking rain down on our enemies."

"Your enemies," I corrected.

"We'll see," he answered quickly, and then perked up and said, "Oh, hey, I'll handle this one. The thing about Nick's house is they have this crazy good security system. And we can't have another panic attack."

"Um," I said. Nick lived just down the road from Nonny, in this uber-rich subdivision called Casavilla.

All the houses in Casavilla are Spanish-style with the red-tile roofs and everything, only they weren't built by the Spanish. They were built by Jason's dad, who is one of the richest land developers in Florida.

"Big, ugly homes for big, ugly people," I told Gil as we pulled into Casavilla.

"No shit. If I ever end up being the kind of person who has one kid and seven bedrooms, do me a favor and shoot me."

We pulled up in front of Nick's house, an architectural monstrosity that looked generally like an oversize Spanish hacienda except for three thick Doric columns going up to the roof.

Gil grabbed the second catfish from the backseat, uncapped a pen with his teeth, and scrawled in handwriting that didn't look much like his: GG's love for you: It sleeps with the fishes.

"Listen, keep the car on," he said.

He put Nick's WPHS baseball hat on backward.

"Okay," I said.

"Keep it in drive," he said.

"Okay," I said, and felt my pulse rising.

In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Catfish and spray paint in hand, Gil threw the door open, jogged across the Walters' expansive front lawn, and then hid behind an oak tree.

He waved at me through the darkness, and I waved back, and then he took a dramatically deep breath, puffed his cheeks out, turned, and ran.

He'd only taken one stride when the house lit up like a municipal Christmas tree, and a siren started blaring.

I briefly contemplated abandoning Gil to his fate, but just kept breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth as he ran toward the house.

He heaved the fish through a window, but the sirens were so loud I could barely even hear the glass breaking.

And then, just because he's Gilligan Zachary Gordon, he took a moment to carefully spray-paint a lovely G on the part of the window that wasn't shattered.

Then he was running all out toward the car, and I had a foot on the accelerator and a foot on the brake, and the Chrysler felt at that moment like a thoroughbred racehorse. Gil ran so fast his hat blew off behind him and then he jumped into the car, and we were gone before he even got the door closed.

I stopped at the stop sign at the end of the street, and Gil said, "What the hell? Go go go go go," and I said, "Oh, right," because I had forgotten that I was throwing caution to the wind and everything.

I rolled through the three other stop signs in Casavilla, and we were a mile down Pennsylvania Avenue before we saw a cop car roar past us with its lights on.

"That was pretty hardcore," Gil said. "I mean, even for me. To put it Molls-style, my pulse is a little elevated."

"Jesus," I said. "I mean, you couldn't have just left it in his car? Or at least at the doorstep?"

"We bring the fucking rain, Molly. Not the scattered showers."

"Tell me Part Eight is less terrifying."

"Don't worry. Part Eight is child's play. We're going back to Jefferson Park. Jacob's house. You know where he lives, right?"

I did, although God knows Jacob would never deign to have me over.

He lived on the opposite side of Jefferson Park, a mile away from me, in a nice condo on top of a stationery store— the same block a dead guy had lived on, actually.

I'd been to the building before, because friends of my parents lived on the third floor.

There were two locked doors before you even got to the condos.

I figured even Gilligan Zachary Gordon couldn't break into that place.

"So has Jacob been naughty or nice?" I asked.

"Jacob has been distinctly naughty," Gil answered.

He was looking out the passenger window again, talking away from me, so I could barely hear him.

"I mean, we have been friends since kindergarten."

"And?"

"And he didn't tell me about Nick. But not just that. When I look back on it, he's just a terrible friend. I mean, for instance, do you think I'm fat?"

"Jesus, no," I said. "You're—" And I stopped myself from saying not skinny, but that's the whole point of you; the point of you is that you look like a boy.

"You should not lose any weight."

He laughed, waved his hand at me, and said, "You just love my fabulous muscles."

I turned from the road for a second and glanced over, and I shouldn't have, because he could read my face and my face said: Well, first off I wouldn't say they're the most muscular exactly, and second off, they are kind of spectacular.

But it was more than that.

You can't divorce Gil the person from Gil the body.

You can't see one without seeing the other.

You looked at Gil's eyes and you saw both their blueness and their Gilly-ness.

In the end, you could not say that Gilligan Zachary Gordon was fat, or that he was skinny, any more than you can say that the Eiffel Tower is or is not lonely.

Gil's handsomeness was a kind of sealed vessel of perfection—uncracked and uncrackable.

"But he would always make these little comments," Gil continued. "'I'd loan you this hat but I don't think it'd look right on you.' Or, 'You're so spunky. I love how you just make girls fall in love with your personality.' Constantly undermining me. I don't think he ever said anything that wasn't an attempt at undermination."

"Undermining."

"Thank you, Annoying McMasterGrammician."

"Grammarian," I said.

"Oh my god, Molls. I'm going to kill you!" But he was laughing.

I drove around the perimeter of Jefferson Park so we could avoid driving past our houses, just in case our parents had woken up and discovered us missing.

We drove in along the lake (Lake Jefferson), and then turned onto Jefferson Court and drove into Jefferson Park's little faux downtown, which felt eerily deserted and quiet.

We found Jacob's black SUV parked in front of the sushi restaurant.

We stopped a block away in the first parking spot we could find not beneath a streetlight.

"Would you please hand me the last fish?" Gil asked me.

I was glad to get rid of the fish because it was already starting to smell.

And then Gil wrote on the paper wrapper in his lettering: Your friendship with GG sleeps with the fishes.

We wove our way around the circular glow of the streetlights, walking as casually as two people can when one of them (Gil) is holding a sizable fish wrapped in paper and the other one (me) is holding a can of blue spray paint.

A dog barked, and we both froze, but then it was quiet again, and soon we were at Jacob's car. "Well, that makes it harder," Gil said, seeing it was locked.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a length of wire that had once been a coat hanger.

It took him less than a minute to jimmy the lock open.

I was duly awed.

Once he had the driver's-side door open, he reached over and opened my side.

"Hey, help me get the seat up," he whispered.

Together we pulled the backseat up.

Gil slipped the fish underneath it, and then he counted to three, and in one motion we slammed the seat down on the fish.

I heard the disgusting sound of catfish guts exploding.

I let myself imagine the way Jacob's SUV would smell after just one day of roasting in the sun, and I'll admit that a kind of serenity washed over me.

And then Gil said, "Put an G on the roof for me."

I didn't even have to think about it for a full second before I nodded, scrambled up onto the back bumper, and then leaned over, quickly spraying a gigantic G all across the roof.

Generally, I am opposed to vandalism.

But I am also generally opposed to Jacob—and in the end, that proved to be the more deeply held conviction.

I jumped off the car.

I ran through the darkness—my breath coming fast and short—for the block back to the minivan. As I put my hand on the steering wheel, I noticed my pointer finger was blue. I held it up for Gil to see.

He smiled, and held out his own blue finger, and then they touched, and his blue finger was pushing against mine softly and my pulse failed to slow.

And then after a long time, he said, "Part Nine— downtown."

It was 2:49 in the morning. I had never, in my entire life, felt less tired.

…

Tourists never go to downtown Orlando, because there's nothing there but a few skyscrapers owned by banks and insurance companies.

It's the kind of downtown that becomes absolutely deserted at night and on the weekends, except for a few nightclubs half-filled with the desperate and the desperately lame.

As I followed Gil's directions through the maze of one-way streets, we saw a few people sleeping on the sidewalk or sitting on benches, but nobody was moving.

Gil rolled down the window, and I felt the thick air blow across my face, warmer than night ought to be. I glanced over and saw strands of hair blowing all around his face.

Even though I could see him there, I felt entirely alone among these big and empty buildings, like I'd survived the apocalypse and the world had been given to me, this whole and amazing and endless world, mine for the exploring.

"You just giving me the tour?" I asked.

"No," he said. "I'm trying to get to the SunTrust Building. It's right next to the Asparagus."

"Oh," I said, because for once on this night I had useful information. "That's on South."

I drove down a few blocks and then turned. Gil pointed happily, and yes, there, before us, was the Asparagus.

The Asparagus is not, technically, an asparagus spear, nor is it derived from asparagus parts.

It is just a sculpture that bears an uncanny resemblance to a thirty-foot-tall piece of asparagus— although I've also heard it likened to: 1. A green-glass beanstalk 2. An abstract representation of a tree 3. A greener, glassier, uglier Washington Monument 4. The Jolly Green Giant's gigantic Jolly Green Phallus.

At any rate, it certainly does not look like a Tower of Light, which is the actual name of the sculpture.

I pulled in front of a parking meter and looked over at Gil.

I caught him staring into the middle distance just for a moment, his eyes blank, looking not at the Asparagus, but past it.

It was the first time I thought something might be wrong—not my-boyfriend-is-an-ass wrong, but really wrong.

And I should have said something.

Of course. I should have said thing after thing after thing after thing.

But I only said, "May I ask why you have taken me to the Asparagus?"

He turned his head to me and shot me a smile.

Gil was so handsome that even his fake smiles were convincing.

"We gotta check on our progress. And the best place to do that is from the top of the SunTrust Building."

I rolled my eyes.

"Nope. No. No way. You said no breaking and entering."

"This isn't breaking and entering. It's just entering, because there's an unlocked door."

"Gilly, that's ridiculous. Of c—"

"I will acknowledge that over the course of the evening there has been both breaking and entering. There was entering at Gaby's house. There was breaking at Nick's house. And there will be entering here. But there has never been simultaneous breaking and entering. Theoretically, the cops could charge us with breaking, and they could charge us with entering, but they could not charge us with breaking and entering. So I've kept my promise."

"Surely the SunTrust Building has, like, a security guard or whatever," I said.

"They do," he said, unbuckling his seat belt. "Of course they do. His name is Goby."

We walked in through the front door.

Sitting behind a broad, semicircular desk sat a young guy with a struggling goatee wearing a Regents Security uniform.

"What's up, Goby?" he said.

"Hey, Goby," he answered. "Who's the kid?"

KID? KID? WE ARE THE SAME AGE!

I wanted to shout, but I let Gil talk for me.

"This is my colleague, Molly. Molls, this is Goby."

"What's up, Molls?" asked Goby.

Oh, we're just scattering some dead fish about town, breaking some windows, photographing naked guys, hanging out in skyscraper lobbies at three-fifteen in the morning, that kind of thing.

"Not much," I answered.

"Elevators are down for the night," Goby said. "Had to shut 'em off at three. You're welcome to take the stairs, though."

"Cool. See ya, Goby."

"See ya, Gil."

"How the hell do you know the security guard at the SunTrust Building?" I asked once we were safely in the stairwell.

"He goes to our school, Molly, haven't you ever seen him?," he answered. "We gotta hustle, okay? Time's awastin'."

Gil started taking the stairs two at a time, flying up, one arm on the rail, and I tried to keep pace with him, but couldn't.

Gil played many sports, and he loved to run—I sometimes saw him running by herself listening to music in Jefferson Park.

I, however, did not like to run. Or, for that matter, engage in any kind of physical exertion. But now I tried to keep up a steady pace, wiping the sweat off my forehead and ignoring the burning in my legs.

When I got to the twenty-fifth floor, Gil was standing on the landing, waiting for me.

 **[Gil's POV]**

Molly was really anxious, and slow, and awkward, and loud, but she made for a pretty good ninja if you ask me.

"Check it out," I said.

I opened the stairwell door and we were inside a huge room with an oak table as long as two cars, and a long bank of floor-to-ceiling windows.

"Conference room," I said. "It's got the best view in the whole building."

Molly followed me as she walked along the windows.

"Okay, so there," I said pointing, "is Jefferson Park. See our houses? Lights still off, so that's good."

I moved over a few panes.

"Nick's house. Lights off, no more cop cars. Excellent, although it might mean he's made it home, which is unfortunate."

Gaby's house was too far away to see, even from up here.

I was quiet for a moment, and then I walked right up to the glass and leaned my forehead against it.

I could tell Molly was going to hang back, but then I grabbed her T-shirt and pulled her forward.

She said she didn't want our collective weight against a single pane of glass, but I kept pulling her forward, and I could feel her balled fist at my side, and finally she put her head against the glass as gently as possible and looked around.

From above, Orlando was pretty well lit.

Beneath us I could see the flashing DON'T WALK signs at intersections, and the streetlights running up and down the city in a perfect grid until downtown ended and the winding streets and cul-de-sacs of Orlando's infinite suburb started.

"It's beautiful. Don't you think?" I said.

Molly scoffed.

"Really? You seriously think so?"

"I mean, well, maybe not," I said, although it was.

When I saw Orlando from an airplane, it looked like a LEGO set sunk into an ocean of green. Here, at night, it looked like a real place—but for the first time a place I could see.

As I walked around the conference room, and then through the other offices on the floor, I could see it all: there was school. There was Jefferson Park. There, in the distance, Disney World. There was Wet 'n Wild. There, the 7-Eleven where I watched a movie and Molly fought for breath. It was all here—my whole hometown, and I could see it just by walking around a building.

"It's more impressive," I said out loud. "From a distance, I mean. You can't see the wear on things, you know? You can't see the rust or the weeds or the paint cracking. You see the place as someone once imagined it."

"Everything's uglier close up," she said.

"Not you," I said, before thinking better of it.

Her forehead still against the glass, she turned to me and smiled.

"That's sweet, but unfortunately highly false. Thank you, though."

Before I had a chance to say anything, she leaned in and pressed her soft lips against my cheek, leaving a warm, fuzzy, unexplained feeling inside me.

Her eyes went back to the view and she started talking. "Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a fake town. I mean look at it, Gilly: look at all those cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those fake people living in their fake houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the fake kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the fake convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters."

"I'll try not to take that personally, and look at you. Since when have you become so into looking at things? Have I changed you already?" I said, chuckling a bit.

We were both staring into the inky distance, the cul-de sacs and quarter-acre lots.

But her shoulder was against my arm, and the backs of our hands were touching, and although I was not looking at Molly, pressing myself against the glass felt almost like pressing myself against her.

"Sorry," she said. "Maybe things would have been different for me if I'd—ugh. Just, God. I just hate myself so much for even caring about everything that's been happening lately."

And here is what I said.

I said, "Molly what's wrong? You were fine until we got here and now you're all depressed? Did I do something? Ugh I swear to god if I did something-"

"Gilly," she said while cutting me off, "It's not you at all. Don't worry about me." she answered, her voice trailing off.

"Molly, you're worth a lot more than you think.

It makes me upset to see yourself and the world like this. Just tell me if anything's wrong okay? That's why I'm here, to protect you. We bring down the fucking rain, Molly, not the scattered showers."

She turned to me and nodded softly.

I smiled.

She smiled.

I believed the smile.

We walked to the stairs and then ran down them.

At the bottom of each flight, I jumped off the bottom step and clicked my heels to make her laugh, and she laughed.

I wanted to do everything I could to cheer her up.

She just wasn't worth the frown.

…

 **HOLY CRAPES  
CHAPTER 2 IS DONE. **

**AND THIS MINI FIC IS ALMOST DONE TOO :(((((**

 **THERE'S A REASON IT'S CALLED A MINI FIC, CHILDREN.**

 **I'M HIGHLY UPSET ABOUT THIS BUT…**

 **IT AIN'T OVER YET.**

 **I HAVE TWO OTHER LONG TERM ACTUAL FANFICS I MAY BE POSTING SOON,**

 **SO DON'T BE SAD.**

 **ILY ALL AND I'LL BE BACK SOON;)**

 **Amelia :)))**

 **P.S: Read** _ **The Next Generation**_ **by Authorgirl12 and** _ **Rocking the Atmosphere**_ **by Amberstone12 because we totally didn't all update at the same time on purpose ;).**


	3. Chapter 3 - THAT'S A RANDOM OLD GUY

**hEyo gUYs**

 **SO HOW ARE Y'ALL ON THIS LOVELY, GOLLY-FILLED, DAY?**

 **Lol okay so I think this is the second to last chapter of Inevitably Delinquents, which upsets me, but I mean I may make a sequel to it. (WHich wiLL conSist oF nOOnA haha)**

 **BUT ANYWAY HERE's CHAPTER 3.**

…

[Molly's POV]

Sitting in the minivan with the keys in the ignition but the engine not yet started, he asked, "What time do your parents get up, by the way?"

"I don't know, like, six-fifteen?"

It was 3:51.

"I mean, we have two-plus hours and we're through with nine parts."

"I know, but I saved the most laborious one for last. Anyway, we'll get it all done. Part Ten—Molly's turn to pick a victim."

"What?"

"I already picked a punishment. Now you just pick who we're going to rain our mighty wrath down on."

"Upon whom we are going to rain our mighty wrath," I corrected him, and he shook his head in disgust.

"And I don't really have anyone upon whom I want to rain down my wrath," I said, because in truth I didn't.

I always felt like you had to be important to have enemies.

Example: Historically, Germany has had more enemies than Luxembourg.

Gilligan Zachary Gordon was Germany.

And Great Britain.

And the United States.

And czarist Russia.

Me, I'm Luxembourg.

Just sitting around, tending sheep, and yodeling.

"What about Bella?" he asked.

"Hmm," I said.

Bella was pretty horrible in all those years before she'd been reined in.

Aside from the cafeteria conveyor belt debacle, she once grabbed me outside school while I waited for the bus and twisted my arm and kept saying, "Call yourself a faggot."

That was her all-purpose, I have-a-vocabulary-of-twelve-words-so-don't-expect-a-wide-variety-of-insults insult.

And even though it was ridiculously childish, in the end I had to call myself a faggot, which really annoyed me, because 1. I don't think that word should ever be used by anyone, let alone me, and 2. As it happens, I am not lesbian, and furthermore, 3. Bella Smith made it out like calling yourself a faggot was the ultimate humiliation, even though there's nothing at all embarrassing about being lesbian, which I was trying to say while she twisted my arm farther and farther toward my shoulder blade, but she just kept saying, "If you're so proud of being a faggot, why don't you admit that you're a faggot, faggot?"

Clearly, Bella Smith was no Aristotle when it came to logic.

But she was six three, and 270 pounds, which counts for something.

"You could make a case for Bella," I acknowledged.

And then I turned on the car and started to make my way back toward the interstate.

I didn't know where we were going, but we sure as hell weren't staying downtown.

"Remember at the Crown School of Dance?" he asked.

"I was just thinking about that tonight."

"Ugh. Yeah."

"I'm sorry about that, by the way. I have no idea why I went along with her."

"Yeah. It's all good," I said, but remembering the godforsaken Crown School of Dance pissed me off, and I said, "Yeah. Bella Smith. You know where she lives?"

"I knew I could bring out your vengeful side. She's in College Park. Get off at Princeton." I turned onto the interstate entrance ramp and floored it.

"Whoa there," Gil said. "Don't break the Chrysler."

In sixth grade, a bunch of kids including Gil and Bella and me were forced by our parents to take ballroom dancing lessons at the Crown School of Humiliation, Degradation, and Dance.

And how it worked was the boys would stand on one side and the girls would stand on the other and then when the teacher told us to, the boys would walk over to the girls and the boy would say, "May I have this dance?" and the girl would say, "You may."

Girls were not allowed to say no.

But then one day—we were doing the fox-trot, and Bella Smith convinced every single guy to not ask me.

Not anyone else.

Just me.

So I walked across to Alejandro Shortz and I said, "Can you ask me to dance?" and he said no. And then I asked another guy, and then another, and then Gil, who also said no, and then another, and then I started to cry.

The only thing worse than getting rejected at dance school is crying about getting rejected at dance school, and the only thing worse than that is going to the dance teacher and saying through your tears, "The guys won't ask me and they're supposed to."

So of course I went weeping to the teacher, and I spent the majority of middle school trying to live down that one embarrassing event.

So, long story short, Bella Smith kept me from ever dancing the fox-trot, which doesn't seem like a particularly horrible thing to do to a sixth-grader.

And I wasn't really pissed about it anymore, or about everything else she'd done to me over the years.

But I certainly wasn't going to lament her suffering.

"Wait, she won't know it's me, will she?"

"Nope. Why?"

"I don't want her to think I give enough of a shit about her to hurt her."

I put a hand down on the center console and Gil patted it.

"Don't worry," he said. "She'll never know what depilatated her."

"I think you just misused a word, but I don't know what it means."

"I know a word you don't know," Gil chanted. "I'M THE NEW KING OF VOCABULARY! I'VE USURPED YOU!"

"Spell usurped," I told him.

"No," he answered, laughing.

"I'm not giving up my crown over usurped. You'll have to do better."

"Fine." I smiled.

We drove through College Park, a neighborhood that passes for Orlando's historic district on account of how the houses were mostly built thirty whole years ago.

Gil couldn't remember Bella's exact address, or what her house looked like, or even for sure what street it was on ("I'm almost like ninety-five percent positive it's on Vassar.").

Finally, after the Chrysler had prowled three blocks of Vassar Street, Gil pointed to his left and said, "That one."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"I'm like ninety-seven-point-two percent sure. I mean, I'm pretty sure her bedroom is right there," he said, pointing. "One time she had a party, and when the cops came I shimmied out her window. I'm pretty sure it's the same window."

"This seems like we could get in trouble."

"But if the window is open, there's no breaking involved. Only entering. And we just did entering at the SunTrust, and it wasn't that big of a deal, right?"

I laughed. "It's like you're turning me into a badass."

"That's the idea. Okay, supplies: get the Veet, the spray paint, and the Vaseline."

"Okay." I grabbed them.

"Now don't freak out on me, Molls. The good news is that Bella sleeps like a hibernating bear—I know because I had English with her last year and she wouldn't wake up even when Ms. Johnston swatted her with Jane Eyre. So we're going to go up to her bedroom window, we're gonna open it, we're gonna take off our shoes, and then very quietly go inside, and I'm going to screw with Bella. Then you and I are going to fan out to opposite sides of the house, and we're going to cover every door handle in Vaseline, so even if someone wakes up, they'll have a hella hard time getting out of the house in time to catch us. Then we'll screw with Bella some more, paint her house a little, and we're out of there. And no talking."

I put my hand to my jugular, but I was smiling.

We were walking away from the car together when Gil reached down for my hand, laced his fingers in mine, and squeezed.

I squeezed back and then glanced at him.

He nodded his head solemnly, and I nodded back, and then he let go of my hand.

We scampered up to the window.

I gently pushed the wooden casing up.

It squeaked ever so quietly but opened in one motion. I looked in. It was dark, but I could see a body in a bed. The window was a little high for me, so Gil put his hands together and I stepped a socked foot onto his hand and Gil boosted me up.

My silent entrance into the house would have made a ninja jealous.

Gil proceeded to jump up, get his head and shoulders into the window, and then attempt, via a complicated torso undulation, to dance the caterpillar into the house.

That might have worked fine except he racked his balls against the windowsill, which hurt so bad that he groaned, which was a pretty sizable mistake.

A bedside light came on.

And there, lying in bed, was some old guy—decidedly not Bella Smith.

His eyes were wide with terror; he didn't say a thing.

"Um," said Gil.

I thought about shoving off and running back to the car, but for Gil's sake I stayed there, the top half of me in the house, parallel to the floor.

"Um, I think we have the wrong house." He turned around then and looked at me urgently, and only then did I realize I was blocking Gil's exit.

So I pushed myself back out the window, grabbed my shoes, and took off. We drove to the other side of College Park to regroup.

"I think we share the blame on that one," Gil said.

"No, you picked the wrong house," I said, "And you were the one who made noise."

It was quiet for a minute, and we were just driving in circles, and then finally I said, "We could probably get her address off the Internet. Deema has a login to the school directory."

"Brilliant," Gil said.

So I called Deema, but her phone went straight to voicemail.

I contemplated calling her house, but her parents were friends with my parents, so that wouldn't work.

Finally, it occurred to me to call Oona. She wasn't Deema, but he did know all of Deema's passwords.

I called.

It went to voicemail, but only after ringing.

So I called again.

Voice mail.

I called again.

Voice mail.

Gil said, "She's obviously not answering," and as I dialed again, I said, "Oh, she'll answer."

And after just four more calls, she did.

"Molly why are you calling me at 4 in the morning?" Oona said while yawning.

"I need you to use Deema's login to the student directory and look up an address. Bella Smith."

"No."

"Please," I said.

"No."

"You'll be glad you did this, Oona. I promise."

"Molly I don't want you to get in trouble, but I'm tired so here you go. 422 Amherst Drive. Hey, why do you want Bella Smith's address at four-twelve in the morning?"

"Get some sleep, Oona."

"I'm going to hope this is a dream," Oona answered, and hung up.

Amherst was only a couple blocks down.

We parked on the street in front of 418 Amherst, got our supplies together, and jogged across Bella's lawn, the morning dew shaking off the grass and onto my calves.

At her window, which was fortunately lower than that of Random Old Guy, I climbed in quietly and then pulled Gil up and in.

Bella was asleep on her back.

Gil walked over to her, tiptoeing, and I stood behind him, my heart pounding.

"Gilly do we have to do this?" I said, rather loudly before being shushed by Gil.

"Yes of course we do, she hurt you right? And no one hurts my Molls and gets away with it, just like no one hurts me and gets away with it. She deserves to be punished." He whispered, looking directly at me with his beautiful ocean colored orbs.

"I'm starting to think you're the 'little birdy' who told Bella to stop messing with me." I said, before smiling a bit.

Sometime around sophomore year of high school, Bella suddenly stopped messing with me, and according to her, it was because a little birdy told her to stop or else.

I didn't know who that birdy was, but now I do.

"Yes," He said, before sighing and looking down at his bare feet, "That was me."

I knew Gil just wanted to get revenge at Bella for hurting me, and I knew he was being sweet, but if she woke up, we were dead.

He pulled out the Veet, sprayed a dob of what looked like shaving cream onto his palm, and then softly and carefully spread it across Bella's right eyebrow.

She didn't so much as twitch.

Then he opened the Vaseline—the lid made what seemed like a deafeningly loud clorp, but again, Bella showed no sign of waking.

He scooped a huge gob of it into my hand, and then we headed off to opposite sides of the house.

I went to the entryway first and slathered Vaseline on the front door's doorknob, and then to the open door of a bedroom, where I Vaselined the inner knob and then quietly, with only the slightest creak, shut the door to the room.

Finally I returned to Bella's room—Gil was already there—and together we closed her door and then Vaselined the hell out of Bella's doorknob.

We slathered every surface of his bedroom window with the rest of the Vaseline, hoping it would make it hard to open the window after we closed it shut on our way out.

Gil glanced at his watch and held up two fingers.

We waited.

And for those two minutes we just stared at each other, and I watched the blue in his eyes.

It was nice—in the dark and the quiet, with no possibility of me saying anything to screw it up, and his eyes looking back, like there was something in me worth seeing.

Gil nodded then, and I walked over to Bella.

I wrapped my hand in my T-shirt, as he'd told me to do, leaned forward, and—as softly as I could—pressed my finger against his forehead and then quickly wiped away the Veet.

With it came every last hair that had been Bella Smith's right eyebrow.

I was standing above Bella with her right eyebrow on my T-shirt when her eyes shot open. Lightning fast, Gil grabbed his comforter and threw it over him, and when I looked up, the little ninja was already out the window.

I followed as quickly as I could, while Bella screamed, "MAMA! DAD! ROBBERY ROBBERY!"

I wanted to say, the only thing we stole was your eyebrow, but I kept quiet as I swung myself feet first out the window. I damn near landed on Gil, who was spray-painting an G onto the vinyl siding of Bella's house, and then we both grabbed our shoes and hauled ass to the minivan.

When I looked back at the house, lights were on but no one was outside yet, a testament to the brilliant simplicity of the well-Vaselined doorknob.

By the time Mr. (or possibly Mrs., I couldn't really see) Smith pulled open the living room curtains and looked outside, we were driving in reverse back toward Princeton Street and the interstate. "Yes!" I shouted. "God, that was brilliant."

"Did you see it? His face without the eyebrow? She looks permanently doubtful, you know? Like, 'oh, really? You're saying I only have one eyebrow? Likely story.' And I love making that asshole choose: better to shave off Lefty, or paint on Righty? Oh, I just love it. And how she yelled for her mama, that sniveling little shit."

I leaned across the minivan and put my head on his bony shoulder, my hair falling against my neck.

"I'm tired," I said.

"Caffeine," he said.

He reached into the back and grabbed us each a Mountain Dew, and I drank it in two long chugs. "So we're going to SeaWorld," he told me. "Part Eleven."

"What, are we going to Free Willy or something?"

"No," he said.

"We're just going to go to SeaWorld, that's all. It's the only theme park I haven't broken into yet." "We can't break into SeaWorld," I said, and then I pulled over into an empty furniture store parking lot and turned off the car.

"We're in a bit of a time crunch," he told me, and then reached over to start the car again.

I pushed his hand away.

"We can't break into SeaWorld," I repeated.

"There you go with the breaking again." Gil paused and opened another Mountain Dew. Light reflected off the can onto his face, and for a second I could see him smiling at the thing he was about to say. "We're not going to break anything. Don't think of it as breaking into SeaWorld. Think of it as visiting SeaWorld in the middle of the night for free."

…

 **AYE SO HOW DID YOU ALL LIKE THIS CHAPPIE?**

 **I did personally enjoy writing about ripping Bella's eyebrow off and such, it just had to be done.**

 **BUT yEAH NEXT CHAPTER IS THE LAST ONE UNFORTUNATELY, AND Y'ALL SHOULD SEE THAT SOON, I JUST WANNA REALLY START MY LONG TERM FIC SOMETIME SOON HAHA.**

 **Quick question though: WOuld y'all like me to do kind of a continuation to this?**

 **Leave a review with your thoughts and if y'all have any questions, don't be hesitant to ask me!**

 **R &R!**

 **Amelia :)**


	4. Chapter 4 - Shamu Killed the Drunk Guy

**HELLLOOOOOO**

 **OH MY GOD THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER  
WHAT  
Well maybe *insert smirking emoji* we could have a one more chapter, bUT THAT'S UP FOR YOU TO DECIDE!**

 **LEAVE A REVIEW AND LMK WHETHER YOU WANT ONE!**

 **...**

"Well, first off, we will get caught," I said.

I hadn't started the minivan and was laying out the reasons I wouldn't start it and wondering if he could see me in the dark.

"Of course we'll get caught. So what?"

"It's illegal."

"Molls, in the scheme of things, what kind of trouble can Sea-World get you into? I mean, Jesus, after everything I've done for you tonight, you can't do one thing for me? You can't just shut up and calm down and stop being so goddamned terrified of every little adventure?" And then under his breath he said, "I mean, god, I've never seen anyone so chicken."

And now I was mad.

I ducked underneath my shoulder belt so I could lean across the console toward him.

"After everything YOU did for ME?" I almost shouted.

He wanted confident?

He was getting confident.

"Did you call MY friend's father who was screwing MY friend so no one would know that I was calling? Did you chauffeur MY ass all around the world not because you are oh-so-important to me but because I needed a ride and you were close by? Is that the kind of shit you've done for me tonight?"

He wouldn't look at me.

He just stared straight ahead at the vinyl siding of the furniture store.

"You think I needed you? You don't think I could have given Bubble Puppy a Benadryl so he'd sleep through my stealing the safe from under my parents' bed? Or snuck into your bedroom while you were sleeping and taken your car key? I didn't need you, you idiot. I picked you. And then you picked me back."

Now he looked at me.

"And that's like a promise. At least for tonight. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad. For richer, for poorer. Till dawn do us part."

I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, but all his teamwork stuff aside, I still felt like I was getting badgered into something, and I wanted the last word.

"Fine, but when Sea-World or whatever sends a letter to Duke University saying that miscreant Moleena Gentilella broke into their facility at four thirty in the morning with a wild-eyed lad at her side, Duke University will be mad. Also, my parents will be mad."

"Molls, you're going to go to Duke. You're going to be a very successful lawyer-or-something and get married and have babies and live your whole little life, and then you're going to die, and in your last moments, when you're choking on your own bile in the nursing home, you'll say to yourself: 'Well, I wasted my whole goddamned life, but at least I broke into SeaWorld with Gilligan Zachary Gordon in my senior year of high school. At least I carpe'd that one diem.'"

"Noctem," I corrected.

"Okay, you are the Grammar Queen again. You've regained your throne. Now take me to SeaWorld."

...

As we drove silently down I-4, I found myself thinking about the act we were about to pull off.

I laughed and exited the interstate.

We turned onto International Drive, the tourism capital of the world.

There were a thousand shops on International Drive, and they all sold the exact same thing: crap.

Crap molded into seashells, key rings, glass turtles, Florida-shaped refrigerator magnets, plastic pink flamingos, whatever. In fact, there were several stores on I-Drive that sold actual, literal armadillo crap—$4.95 a bag.

But at 4:50 in the morning, the tourists were sleeping.

The Drive was completely dead, like everything else, as we drove past store after parking lot after store after parking lot.

"SeaWorld is just past the parkway," Gil said. He was in the wayback of the minivan again, rifling through a backpack or something. "I got all these satellite maps and drew our plan of attack, but I can't freaking find them anywhere. But anyway, just go right past the parkway, and on your left there will be this souvenir shop."

"On my left, there are about seventeen thousand souvenir shops."

"Right, but there will only be one right after the parkway."

And sure enough, there was only one, and so I pulled into the empty parking lot and parked the car directly beneath a streetlight, because cars are always getting stolen on I-Drive. And while only a truly masochistic car thief would ever think of jacking the Chrysler, I still didn't relish the thought of explaining to my mom how and why her car went missing in the small hours of a school night.

We stood outside, leaning against the back of the minivan, the air so warm and thick I felt my clothes clinging to my skin.

I felt scared again, as if people I couldn't see were looking at me.

It had been too dark for too long, and my gut ached from the hours of worrying.

Gil had found his maps, and by the light of the street lamp, his spray-paint-blue fingertip traced our route. "I think there's a fence right there," he said, pointing to a wooden patch we'd hit just after crossing the parkway. "I read about it online. They installed it a few years ago after some drunk guy walked into the park in the middle of the night and decided to go swimming with Shamu, who promptly killed him."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, so if that guy can make it in drunk, surely we can make it in sober. I mean, we're ninjas." "Well, maybe you're a ninja," I said.

"You're just a really loud, awkward ninja, although at Random Old Guy's house, you did well. I was the awkward one there," Gil said, "but we are both ninjas." He ran his fingers through his hair, pulled up his hood, and scrunched it shut with a drawstring; the streetlight lit up the sharp features of his pale face.

Maybe we were both ninjas, but only he had the outfit.

"Okay," he said. "Memorize the map."

By far the most terrifying part of the half-mile-long journey Gil had plotted for us was the moat.

SeaWorld was shaped like a triangle.

One side was protected by a road, which Gil figured was regularly patrolled by night watchmen. The second side was guarded by a lake that was at least a mile around, and the third side had a drainage ditch; from the map, it looked to be about as wide as a two-lane road.

And where there are water-filled drainage ditches near lakes in Florida, there are often alligators. Gil grabbed me by both shoulders and turned me towards him.

"We're going to get caught, probably, and when we do, just let me talk. You just look cute and be that weird mix of innocent and confident, and we'll be fine."

I locked the car, tied my hair up into a high ponytail, and whispered, "I'm a ninja."

I didn't mean for Gil to hear, but he piped up. "Damned right you are! Now let's go."

We jogged across I-Drive and then started bushwhacking through a thicket of tall shrubs and oak trees.

I started to worry about poison ivy, but ninjas don't worry about poison ivy, so I led the trail, my arms in front of me, pushing aside briars and brush as we walked toward the moat.

Finally the trees stopped and the field opened up, and I could see the parkway on our right and the moat straight ahead of us.

People could have seen us from the road if there had been any cars, but there weren't.

Together we took off running through the brush, and then made a sharp turn toward the parkway. Gil said, "Now, now!" and I dashed across the six lanes of highway.

Even though it was empty, something felt exhilarating and wrong about running across a road that big.

We made it across and then knelt down in the knee-high grass beside the parkway.

Gil pointed to the strip of trees between SeaWorld's endlessly gigantic parking lot and the black standing water of the moat.

We ran for a minute along that line of trees, and then Gil pulled on the back of my shirt, and said quietly, "Now the moat. Ladies first," he said.

"Well you're the better ninja," I answered.

"Just go." He said

And I didn't think about the alligators or the disgusting layer of brackish algae.

I just got a running start and jumped as far as I could.

I landed in waist-deep water and then high-stepped across.

The water smelled rank and felt slimy on my skin, but at least I wasn't wet above my waist.

Or at least I wasn't until Gil jumped in, splashing water all over me.

I turned around and splashed him.

He faux-retched.

"Ninjas don't splash other ninjas," Gil complained.

"The true ninja doesn't make a splash at all," I said.

"Ooh, touché."

I was watching Gil pull himself up out of the moat, and I was feeling thoroughly pleased about the lack of alligators.

Plus, my pulse was acceptable, if brisk.

And beneath his unzipped hoodie, his black T-shirt had become clingy in the water, and hair that used to be perfectly gelled up into a quiff, fell in his face.

It looked adorable.

In short, a lot of things were going pretty well when I felt a sharp shard of glass stabbing at the sole of my feet.

I started to step out of the water, but my feet decided they were tired of trying to be ninjas and ended up shaking like crazy, thus making me fall right into the pile of broken glass sitting in the water.

I should have been screaming, but for some odd reason, the only thing I could think about was the fact that someone in their right mind put a pile of broken glass in the middle of a moat.

And then the pain hit.

"Shit!" I said, and I looked down and then said "Shit!" again.

"What happened Molls?"

"Glass. Blood. Ow. Pile. Broken. Glass."

"Can you just tell me what happened?"

"MY FOOT DECIDED TO TAKE A LOVELY VACATION TO A PILE OF GLASS" I screamed, before quickly covering my mouth, afraid that the watchmen had heard me.

"THEN STEP OUT OF THE GLASS YOU IDIOT." Gil screamed just as loudly back at me, before diving down, picking me up, and carrying me bridal style over to a random large rock in the moat.

"Ow, God," I said.

"Lie down, lie down," Gil said, and then he took my foot in his hands, pulled off my sneakers, and I pulled up my jeans.

"Shit." He said, staring at the pool of blood coming out from the sole of my foot. "What the fuck did you step on?"

"A pile of broken glass. Idiot."

"Jeez okay hold on." He said before sliding off his sweatshirt, exposing his bare arms. "Hold still."

He gently dabbed at my foot with the sweatshirt.

He was going to wrap it around my foot as a bandage, but seeing it was too big, he ripped off a sleeve of the sweatshirt and began to wrap it around my foot.

I took it upon myself to make this my time to stare at him, noticing tiny details I'd never noticed before.

Like how he bit his lip while he was concentrating and how he was gentle with his hands, almost as if he were carrying a baby in his hands.

It only made me fall in love with him more.

"Alright that should do it. You okay?"

"Yeah." I said shyly.

I wasn't used to the affectionate side of him.

"Good. Let's continue."

There was a chain-link fence before us, but it was only about six feet tall.

"Honestly, random glass and now this fence? This security is sort of insulting to a ninja." Gil said before, he scampered up, swung his body around, and climbed down like it was a ladder.

I managed not to fall.

We ran through a small thicket of trees, hugging tight against these huge opaque tanks that might have stored animals, and then we came out to an asphalt path and I could see the big amphitheater that I went to all the time as a kid.

The little speakers lining the walkway were playing soft Muzak.

Maybe to keep the animals calm.

"Gil," I said, "we're in SeaWorld."

And he said, "Seriously," and then he jogged away and I followed him.

We ended up by the seal tank, but it seemed like there were no seals inside it.

"Gil," I said again. "We're in SeaWorld."

"Enjoy it," he said without moving his mouth much. "'Cause here comes security."

I dashed through a stand of waist-high bushes, but when Gil didn't run, I stopped.

A guy strolled up wearing a SEAWORLD SECURITY vest and very casually asked, "How are y'all?"

He held a can of something in his hand—pepper spray, I guessed.

To stay calm, I wondered to myself, does he have regular handcuffs, or does he have special SeaWorld handcuffs? Like, are they shaped like two curved dolphins coming together?

"We were just on our way out, actually," said Gil.

"Well, that's certain," the man said. "The question is whether you walkin' out or gettin' driven out by the Orange County sheriff."

"If it's all the same to you," Gil said, "we'd rather walk."

I shut my eyes.

This, I wanted to tell Gil, was no time for snappy comebacks.

But the man laughed.

"You know a man got kilt here a couple years ago jumping in the big tank, and they told us we cain't never let anybody go if they break in, no matter if they're handsome."

"Well, then I guess you have to arrest us."

"But that's the thing. I'm 'bout to get off and go home and have a beer and get some sleep, and if I call the police they'll take their sweet time in coming. I'm just thinkin' out loud here," he said, and then Gil raised his eyes in recognition.

He wiggled a hand into a wet pocket and pulled out one moat-water-soaked hundred-dollar bill. The guard said, "Well, y'all best be getting on now. If I were you, I wouldn't walk out past the whale tank. It's got all-night security cameras all 'round it, and we wouldn't want anyone to know y'all was here."

"Yessir," Gil said demurely, and with that the man walked off into the darkness.

"Man," Gil mumbled as the guy walked away, "I really didn't want to pay that perv. But, oh well. Money's for spendin'."

I could barely even hear him; the only thing happening was the relief shivering out of my skin. This raw pleasure was worth all the worry that preceded it.

"Thank God he's not turning us in," I said.

Gil didn't respond. He was staring past me, his eyes squinting almost closed.

"I felt this exact same way when I got into Universal Studios," he said after a moment. "It's kind of cool and everything, but there's nothing much to see. The rides aren't working. Everything cool is locked up. Most of the animals are put into different tanks at night."

He turned his head and appraised the SeaWorld we could see.

"I guess the pleasure isn't being inside."

"What's the pleasure?" I asked.

"Planning, I guess. I don't know. Doing stuff never feels as good as you hope it will feel."

"This feels pretty good to me," I confessed. "Even if there isn't anything to see."

I sat down on a park bench, and he joined me.

We were both looking out at the seal tank, but it contained no seals, just an unoccupied island with rocky outcroppings made of plastic.

I could smell him next to me, the sweat and the algae from the moat, his cologne strong, and the smell of his skin like crushed almonds.

I felt tired for the first time, and I thought of us lying down on some grassy patch of SeaWorld together, him on his back and me on my side with my arm draped against him, my head on his shoulder, facing him.

Not doing anything—just lying there together beneath the sky, the night here so well lit that it drowns out the stars.

And maybe he could feel me breathe against his neck, and maybe we could just stay there until morning and then the people would walk past as they came into the park, and they would see us and think that we were tourists, too, and we could just disappear into them.

But no.

There was one-eyebrowed Bella to see, Deema to tell the story to, and classes and the band room and Duke and the future.

"Molls," Gil said. I looked up at him, and for a moment I didn't know why he'd said my name, but then I snapped out of my half-sleep.

And I heard it.

The Muzak from the speakers had been turned up, only it wasn't Muzak anymore—it was real music.

It was an old song, but it was a song I knew by heart.

Chasing Cars.

Even through the tiny speakers you could hear that whoever was singing it could sing a thousand goddamned notes at once.

And I felt the unbroken line of me and of him stretching back from our cribs to this incident from long ago to acquaintanceship to now.

And I wanted to tell him that the pleasure for me wasn't planning or doing or leaving; the pleasure was in seeing our strings cross and separate and then come back together—but that seemed too cheesy to say, and anyway, he was standing up.

Gil's blue eyes blinked and he looked impossibly handsome right then, his jeans wet against his legs, his face shining in the gray light.

He reached out his hand and said, "May I have this dance?"

I curtsied, gave him my hand, and said, "You may," and then his hand was on the curve between my waist and my hip, and my hand was on his shoulder.

And then step-step-sidestep, step-step-sidestep.

We fox-trotted all the way around the seal tank, and still the song kept going.

 _ **If I lay here,**_

 _ **If I just lay here,**_

 _ **Would you lie with me and just forget the world?**_

"Sixth-grade slow dance," Gil announced, and we switched positions, my hands on his shoulders and his on my hips, elbows locked, two feet between us.

And then we fox-trotted some more, until the song ended.

He stepped forward and dipped me, just as they'd taught us to do at Crown School of Dance.

I raised one leg and gave him all my weight as he dipped me.

I either trusted him, or wanted to fall.

/

We bought dish towels at a 7-Eleven on I-Drive and tried our best to wash the slime and stink from the moat off our clothes and skin, and I filled the gas tank to where it had been before we drove the circumference of Orlando.

The Chrysler's seats were going to be a little bit wet when Mom drove to work, but I held out hope that she wouldn't notice, since she was pretty oblivious.

My parents generally believed that I was the most well-adjusted and not-likely-to-break-into-SeaWorld person on the planet, since my psychological well-being was proof of their professional talents.

I took my time going home, avoiding interstates in favor of back roads.

Gil and I were listening to the radio, trying to figure out what station had been playing "Chasing Cars" but then he turned it down and said, "All in all, I think it was a success."

"Absolutely," I said, although by now I was already wondering what tomorrow would be like.

"I do wonder if it will be different tomorrow," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "Me, too."

He left it hanging in the air, and then said, "Hey, speaking of tomorrow, as thanks for your hard work and dedication on this remarkable evening, I would like to give you a small gift."

He dug around beneath his feet and then produced the digital camera.

"Take it," he said. "And use the Power of the Tiny Winky wisely."

I laughed and put the camera in my pocket.

"I'll download the pic when we get home and then give it back to you at school?" I asked.

"Yeah, or whenever."

It was 5:42 when I turned into Jefferson Park.

We drove down Jefferson Drive to Jefferson Court and then turned onto our road, Jefferson Way.

I killed the headlights one last time and idled up my driveway. I didn't know what to say, and Gil wasn't saying anything.

We filled a 7-Eleven bag with trash, trying to make the Chrysler look and feel as if the past six hours had not happened.

In another bag, he gave me the remnants of the Vaseline, the spray paint, and the last full Mountain Dew.

My brain raced with fatigue.

With a bag in each hand, I paused for a moment outside the van, staring at him.

"Well, it was a hell of a night," I said finally.

"Come here," he said, and I took a step forward.

He hugged me, and the bags made it hard to hug him back, but if I dropped them I might wake someone.

I felt myself delve deeper into the embrace, his chest comforting and warm, a feeling I wanted to keep forever.

Finally, he removed his arms, ending the hug, and pressed a cute, gentle kiss on my forehead.

"Good night." He said before turning around, walking back on over to his house.

I watched him climb up a tree and then lift himself onto the roof outside of his second-floor bedroom window.

He jimmied his window open and crawled inside.

I walked through my unlocked front door, tiptoed through the kitchen to my bedroom, downloaded the picture of Nick, and got into bed, my mind booming with the things I would tell all my friends at school.

 _ **/**_

 **AND SCENE!**

 **I was going to make them strictly platonic with that hug, but omg I just couldn't help it with the kiss and stuff.**

 **BUT I'M SAD IT ENDED.**

 **GAH.**

 **AND OMG YOU GUYS ASKED ME SO MANY QUESTIONS SO I'MMA ANSWER THEM ALL IN A SEPARATE CHAPPIE.**

 **I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT THAT OMG.**

 **Anyways I'll talk to ya'll soon.**

 **Love,**

 **Amelia 3**


	5. Q&A :)

**Hey guys!** **SOOOO, you guys asked me a lot of questions about this story and some other things!** **I have no idea why!** **But I'm going to answer them!** **Okay let's just get on with the questions.** _Q: Is this inspired by the novel_ Paper Towns _?_ _A: Yes. I said that in the first chapter._ _Q: Why does Molly always call Gilligan Zachary Gordon?_ _A: I honestly don't know. It's just fun to say to be honest._ _Q: Are you more like Molly, or Gil?_ _A: GILLIGAN._ _Q: Are you going to make a sequel to this?_ _A: If you guys want!_ _Q: Are you going to put Psychotic back up?_ _A: I'm not sure!_ _Q: Are you ever going to write a long term fic?_ _A: Yes! I have like 3 coming up, and one surprise thing that involves some of your fave authors!_ **That's all! Thank you guys so much for reading!** **Love you,** **Amelia :)**


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